"One of my favourite lines against the Grünfeld Defence"

by ChessBase
6/17/2022 – In the current ChessBase Magazine Extra #207 Elisabeth Pähtz presents a setup against the Grünfeld Defence that served her well in the FIDE Grand Swiss in Riga 2021: White fianchettos the light-squared bishop and restricts the possibilities of Black's bishop on c8 with 10.h3. Our author has divided her video analysis into four different clips. As harmless as the move 10.h3 may seem at first glance, Black must react precisely to avoid getting into huge trouble. Check it out!

ChessBase Magazine Extra 207 ChessBase Magazine Extra 207

Videos: Elisabeth Paehtz presents one of her favourite weapons against the Gruenfeld. Ivan Sokolov shows a comfortable way to gain an advantage against the Budapest Gambit. "Lucky bag" with 57 analyses by Jorden van Foreest, Nijat Abasov, Igor Stohl et al

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Elisabeth Pähtz: "One of my favourite lines against the Grünfeld Defence"

After the moves 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nf3 Bg7 4.g3 d5 5.cxd5 Nxd5 6.Bg2 Nb6 7.Nc3 Nc6 8.e3 0-0 9.0-0 Re8 Elisabeth Pähtz proposes to put a stop to Black's counterplay with 10.h3. A look at the Reference Database with ChessBase 16 shows that this is a side line, but one that is obviously on the rise!

10.h3 is establishing itself as the first alternative to the main move 10.Re1

The primary intention of 10.h3 is, of course, to take the g4-square away from the bishop on c8 and thus to weaken Black's play against the white centre pawn on d4. In her analysis Elisabeth Pähtz examines all of Black's expected replies and divides the variations into four videos for a better overview.

Video 1: 10...a5 - video time: 06:15 min.
Video 2: 10...a5 11.d5 Nb4 - video time: 10:27 min.
Video 3: 10...Be6 - video time: 04:28 min.
Video 4 - The main variation of this system: 10...e5 11.d5 Na5 12.Qc2 - video time: 19:59 min.

Video 1: 10...a5 11.d5 Ne5 CBM Extra #207

Total playing time of the four video clips of Elisabeth Pähtz in CBM Extra #207: over 40 minutes

ChessBase Magazine Exta #207

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ChessBase Magazine Extra #207

Opening videos

Ivan Sokolov: An idea vs. the Budapest Gambit

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e5 3.dxe5 Ng4 4.e3

Elisabeth Pähtz: Grünfeld Defence Fianchetto Variation with 10.h3

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nf3 Bg7 4.g3 d5 5.cxd5 Nxd5 6.Bg2 Nb6 7.Nc3 Nc6 8.e3 0-0 9.0-0 Re8 10.h3

Jorden van Foreest contributes "The brilliancy" of this edition. At the Tata Steel Masters 2022, the young Dutchman conducted an opening experiment against Praggnanandhaa: 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4?! 

"I had wanted to play this move for a long time, but had not yet had the opportunity. Finally the time had come. There are not too many good reasons why I like the move, the main one is probably that it looks so stupid. :-)" Van Foreest explains. But things continued no less surprising after that: 3...e6 4.0-0 d5 5.Bb5! dxe4 6.Ne5 Qc7 7.Nxc6 bxc6 8.Bc4! made the following position arise on the board:

"So White has lost a pawn and moved his bishop three times in the opening. ..." A very original game with many illuminating comments and a happy outcome for the Dutchman in the end!

In addition to that game, no fewer than 56 other games with detailed annotations await you in the "Lucky bag"! Among them are analyses by Nijat Abasov, Michal Krasenkow, Igor Stohl, Spyridon Kapnisis and many others.

And last but not least: the “Update Service” provides over 48,000 new games for your database!

Once again, almost the entire world's top players are represented!

The games of the Update Service are also included in the Mega Update Service 2022, which you can use with the ChessBase 15/16 programmes (and a corresponding subscription).

ChessBase Magazin Extra #207

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